The Twelve Days of Christmas

Well, it's not 12 days. We've been celebrating since last Saturday, so I guess seven would be more appropriate. We've had lots of food, fun, presents, friends and family over the past week. I'll try and go through all of the pictures and post some of the best ones.

Ford has been nearly perfect through it all (with the exception of waking up at 4:30 am on Christmas morning). He has had so much fun and has enjoyed all of the visiting and toys.

Okay, that's all for now. More to come!

Joseph's Lullaby by Mercy Me

There are a couple of radio stations in Nashville that are only playing Christmas music this month. If you have listened to The Fish here in Nashville, then you've heard this song. Especially since Ford has been a part of our lives, I think about how Mary must have felt when Jesus was born. I never really thought about the earthly father of Jesus, Joseph. Even though he knew that Jesus was the son of God, he still loved him just like every other daddy loves his son. This song made me think of things from Joseph's perspective. If you've heard it or not, here are the sweet lyrics:

Go to sleep my Son
This manger for your bed
You have a long road before You
Rest Your little head

Can You feel the weight of Your glory?
Do You understand the price?
Does the Father guard Your heart for now
So You can sleep tonight?

Go to sleep my Son
Go and chase Your dreams
This world can wait for one more moment
Go and sleep in peace

I believe the glory of Heaven
Is lying in my arms tonight
Lord, I ask that He for just this moment
Simply be my child

Go to sleep my Son
Baby, close Your eyes
Soon enough You'll save the day
But for now, dear Child of mine
Oh my Jesus, Sleep tight

Baby Scarlett

My dear friend Jennifer and her husband Shawn had their first baby on December 7, 2007 (which just happens to be my dad's birthday). She weighed eight pounds and 3 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. Mary Ann and I took a quick trip to visit them this past weekend to meet the new addition to their family. Scarlett is beautiful and perfect. Congratulations to the new parents!

We stayed with Dan and Quin (that's Quin at the bottom), Mary Ann's brother and nephew. Dan is a great host just like his sister! A big thanks to Dan for letting us stay at his house.

Happy Holidays!

We left for North Carolina on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and got back to Nashville on Sunday, November 25th. We had a wonderful visit with Geega(Grana), Papa Forest, Uncle Brad and Uncle Greg. We ate a lot of yummy food (thanks to Grana), played a lot (thanks to Ford) and watched KY lose to Tennessee in 4 overtimes. All in all, we had a nice time! Here are some pictures from our trip.

Grana, Papa Forest, Ford and Ty:

Ford and Papa Forest watching golf:

Grana and Ford:

We took about 100 family pictures to try and get one for a Christmas card. We had a hard time getting Ford to comply.

Scott and his brothers:

Playing at the lake:




I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Daddy's Boy

I have lots of people ask me if Ford is overly attached to me. Since I stay home with him, I automatically thought he would be a Mama's boy. This could not be further from the truth with Ford.

Ford wanted to be everywhere Scott was this weekend, do everything he did. He even fell out of his crib for the first time this morning (very scary) and cried for Scott even though I got to him first. As long as he was helping daddy this weekend, he was happy.




We had a visit from Granny and Mamaw this week. Ford was very excited to see that they were in the car when I picked him up from school on Friday.

I have to mention that sometime this month, our sweet girl dog, Sierra, turns ten. Scott found her entire litter in December of 1997. He found homes for all of them, but he couldn't part with Sierra. Sierra is very quirky and we were a little bit worried about how she would be with Ford. But she is remarkably sweet and tolerant of Ford (and Griffin and Lefty), which makes us love her even more!


We are going to North Carolina this week to spend Thanksgiving with Scott's mom, Forest and Scott's brothers. I hope all of you reading get to spend a wonderful day with your families and that you have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving. I'll miss all of my family in KY, but we'll be there Christmas!

Weekend

This past weekend, Scott and I had some free time without Ford. On Friday night, we went to dinner with Scott's dad and Rona and then went to the Bluebird to listen to Rona's friend, Lari White, play.

It was an excellent show and if you haven't been to the Bluebird, you should go sometime. It's an eclectic place with some unwritten rules...at the door, people with reservations stand in line to the left, people without reservations form a line to the right, for example. They also frown upon talking during the performances, which is kind of a strange concept when listening to live music. It's a total dive and hundreds of famous artists and songwriters have been discovered there. It's a very real example of what Nashville is all about.

On Saturday, Scott had gotten us tickets to go to the UK/Vanderbilt football game. Before the game, we met up with Vandy fans, Mary Ann, Jason and Murray. It was fun to hang out with them even though they were cheering for Vandy!



I can't even tell you how much I love Kentucky and it was so fun to be there at the game with thousands of people that feel the same way that I do. When we got to the game, I jokingly asked Scott if we could move to Lexington. Kentucky won (I'm not really sure how) and the band played My Old Kentucky Home after the game. It was a beautiful, sunny, perfect fall day! Thanks for getting the tickets and for enduring all the obnoxious UK fans, Scott.

Much thanks to PawPaw for our fun night out on Friday and for babysitting Ford while we went to the game. We can't thank you enough!

It's a BOY.........and a GIRL!

As most of you reading this know, Allen and Tiffany (my brother and sister-in-law) are having twins. They found out yesterday that they are having a baby boy AND a baby girl! Everything looked good in the ultrasound and the babies are the size they should be at this stage. I'll try to keep posting updates about the babies as things progress!

A Very Special Week

This past week was a very special one. Abby and Louie came to Nashville on Sunday and brought their kids for the very first time. They spent the week at Mary Ann and Jason's house. Mary Ann and Jason were kind enough to include us, so we spent most of the week at Whee-ull's (Will's) house.

On Monday, we had our friend Zach take pictures of all the kids at Mary Ann's parents' house. Mr. and Mrs. Page (aka Mimi and Pop) have a beautiful farm complete with a tractor and a barn. Mimi even made us dinner and we got to eat in the barn.












The kids played in the yard and Pop took us all for a ride with his tractor and wagon. When Pop stopped to let us get out of the wagon Ford got very upset. He started crying and was saying, "More ma mower peez, Pop (More lawn mower please, Pop)." Zach was able to capture the moment:
To see all of the pictures of the kids you can go to www.zachgoodyearphotography.com and click on Order Prints Online and then go to 10/29/07.



On Tuesday, we went to the zoo. We got to see lots of great animals and we even got to see a very friendly giraffe.













Wednesday was Halloween and Abby's sister-in-law, Julie, made outfits for the kids. Catalina was the Queen of Hearts and the boys were playing cards. We went trick or treating in Mary Ann's neighborhood. The kids had a blast running around the yard and getting candy from the neighbors. Ford would say, "Trit tor treat." Here are some pictures of the Queen and her Court. Much thanks to Julie for the adorable outfits!









After we put all of the kids to bed, Mary Ann, Jennifer, Abby and I went to dinner to celebrate Mary Ann's birthday. It was so nice to wind down a busy week with my sweet girlfriends.


It was wonderful to have the Caputo's here with us in Nashville. We can't wait for them to move back someday!

Trunk or Treat!

Our church hosts a Halloween festival every year called Trunk or Treat. It's in our church parking lot and each community group is encouraged to decorate a car and the kids can trick or treat for candy at said cars.

Lots of folks in the church are creative (or maybe competitive). We had some really great decorated cars and interactive ways for the kids to get treats. There was a Willy Wonka car where you had to get a golden ticket, Hawaiian car complete with the limbo, Happy "Boo"day with a cake walk were just some of the themes. Our group brought a fishing boat and we dressed up as Noah's ark.

Ford dressed up as a very cute skunk.


















They had some of those blow up jump things. Ford spent most of his time bouncing in one that had many colorful balls in it.












The only way Scott was able to lure him out of it was to say, "Let's go look for Kate." Kate is the three year old daughter of our friends, Jason and Shannon.













The adults in our group wore animal masks in keeping with the Noah's ark theme. When I would put the mask over my face Ford would say, "Mommy? Hold you." Ford says 'hold you' instead of 'hold me'. He wasn't sure about my mask, but if I held him then he was certain it was me.


Our friends, Amy and Wes, have two boys. Allen is two and wouldn't wear his football costume so Amy made him this sign:













We had a fun time at Trunk or Treat!

Catching up

I haven't done a very good job of blogging lately. Mainly because I'm having trouble loading pictures like I want and I get frustrated. But, I'll give it a shot anyway. Here are the happenings of the last two weeks!

A couple of weekends ago, Ford and I went to Kentucky for the Hunter's Moon Festival in my hometown of Grand Rivers. Allen, Tiffany and Audrey came and so did Aunt Leigh Ann. Ford had a fun time watching the parade, riding in Mamaw's golf cart and playing with Audrey.















Scott's cousin Ben and his wife Jessica have a new baby girl, Ruby. She was born on October 10th and weighed 8 lb 9 oz. Here she is! Congratulations to Ben, Jessica and Nana Jan!













Here are some cute, recent pictures of Ford. He is obsessed with all of the animals lately (in a good way). When he wakes up in the morning, we can hear him from his bedroom saying, "Daddy! Mommy! See eh (Sierra)! Gee Gee (Griffin)! Let tee (Lefty)!"
















Here is a picture of Ford turning the lights off and on. Is it wrong that I let him do that? It keeps him busy for at least ten minutes AND he's learning opposites, right?

















This one is Ford eating raisins and watching the ducks at the park with Daddy.













Okay, that's all for now. I'll try to post again very soon!

Grana Came to Town

Last week we had a big week! Scott's mom came to visit last Saturday and she stayed until Friday. She spent the week with us and she and Ford got to play lots together. Uncle Brad was also in Nashville in route to New York, so Ford got to spend lots of quality time with him also.

Scott's birthday was on Thursday and we got someone to babysit for us and Scott, Grana, Uncle Brad and I all went out to eat. When we got home, we had cake and Scott opened presents. Ford kept telling Scott "happy day" instead of happy birthday. It was very cute.

I didn't take as many pictures as I should have, but here are a few from this past week.